Write Longer Not Faster

Exploring the reasons why I write and what has inspired me.

It is perhaps impossible to determine where my love of reading has stemmed from. Some mixture of genetics and early experiences is perhaps the easiest solution. This love of reading has been an integral part of my life almost since I was born. I can vividly remember reading Green Eggs and Ham with my mom after my parents got divorced and perhaps this has something to do with it. I can remember getting in trouble in school for reading in class, only to read more during my timeouts. It could almost be called an addiction that not even high school could put a stop too. In high school though, my experience with reading changed.


Finding a New Direction
In my freshman year, I started to, believe it or not, run out of books to read. All of the series I had been reading, the genres I had been frequenting were getting old for me. I decided that maybe it was time to try a new kind of book, broaden my horizons perhaps. So, I tried a few others but not very many of them captured my interest. I was running out of books to try when I finally decided to read a book my dad had given to me while I was in middle school called Lord of the Flies. The same plots and characters were just being recycled time and again without enough variety to make them interesting. I decided to venture out of my comfort zone and try something new. This novel opened my eyes to an entirely new type of genre. One that has depth and greater meaning than those I’ve been used to reading. It changed the game for me. Novels evolved from something that was just a story, to something that could have an impact on people.

I kept digging into literature, now addicted to the feeling of engaging my mind as I read in a much deeper manner. Just the line from Lord of the Flies, “Maybe there is a beast … maybe it’s only us,” suggested that there was more to a book than just an entertaining plot, and I pursued that feeling with zealousness. The simplicity forced me to acknowledge it and I began to see the entirety of the book differently. I wanted a book that touched me deeply, that forced my mind to stretch itself, that could change me as a person. I had found something that forced me to look at the world from a different point of view.

Trying Something Different

My junior year of high school I followed this feeling, but instead of reading I tried writing. The school paper that I was already a part of had a literary magazine, and I decided why not. I would give it a shot. I wrote something and discovered that I loved to craft the same types of stories that I had read for so long. In fact, I got an award for the best of the Literary Magazine that year. I was emboldened to continue along this path and explore the countless directions it could take me. When people ask me why I want to be an English major, this is often the story I tell them about, my own origin story.

Finding Inspiration

During my senior year though, my approach to both writing and literature made another change. One of the first books we had to read in our AP Literature class that year was Catcher in the Rye by J. D. Salinger. The novel follows a teenager as he wanders in New York City for a few days and struggles to come to grips with children’s loss of innocence as they grow into adulthood. Although I had already been introduced to literature with depth and complexity, this was the novel that first made me see literature and writing itself in a different light. Salinger’s use of language opened my eyes to the fact that writing was not only an art form, but something that required a masterful grasp of the English language. Salinger used language in such a precise way as to make the narrator’s voice, as well as conversations between characters seem completely natural. The scene in which Salinger reveals the meaning behind the book’s title portrays this idea particularly well.

"Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around - nobody big, I mean - except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff - I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That's all I do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing I'd really like to be."

Stream of consciousness writing has always been of particular interest to me and this excerpt displays the manner in which this type of writing can be employed successfully. Salinger uses normal speech patterns and interruptions in the sentences to make the reader understand that this is a real person talking who is struggling with deep feelings of fear of adulthood and sadness over his brother’s death that even he has yet to get over. Normal people don’t speak in long flowing sentences and correct grammar is not normally a priority for most. The interruptions with errant thoughts, the inclusion of filler words and phrases, and the guarded nature of his telling all work to characterize Holden and his state of mind. The most impressive part is that even Holden is portrayed as someone that does not consciously realize that they are still struggling. Salinger even purposefully uses the passive voice in some sections of the text to display a sort of dissociation with his brother’s death.

Pushing Forward
The purposeful use of language in the text was truly awesome for me to recognize. The fact that someone could create something so complex and yet cohesive was awesome to behold. He utilized an impressive amount of strategies and was able to utilize all of them extremely well and in a manner that created multiple themes throughout the story. Not only did it intimidate me, but it opened my mind to the concept that to become a great writer I would have to pour effort into the art. The common belief goes that to become an expert at something, one needs to dedicate 10,000 hours to it. I didn’t think that would apply to writing at first, that it was just some outpouring of genius onto page, but reading this book made me realize that it was no exception to that rule. I realized I needed to put the work in, that it would take time and effort to reach even a complete grasp of the English language, let alone achieve mastery over it. As I continue to pursue this future, reading has both given me the tools and the inspiration to hopefully make something that will change someone else’s life.